Poisoned Chalice
by The Hallowed Cat
Summary: Draco does not enjoy the blood anymore. HarryDraco in the middle of the second war.
1. Default Chapter

He'd naively supposed he would be in charge, as he had always been, and it would stay that way. That he would the orders and others would carry them out. That he would never have to get his hands dirty, metaphorically and physically; but now he fells drenched in blood and he's in to deep, to far because this is what he'd wanted.

Only he hadn't wanted the screams, he hadn't wanted to be constantly fearing for his life, he hadn't wanted to get the blood on his hands, the blood he gazes at in disgust while the others laugh and drink it in like an elixir only he knows is a poisoned chalice.

Because everyone kills in the Death Eaters, it is a rite of passage, a membership of the club, unless your name is Draco Malfoy.

Draco Malfoy belongs on the side lines of life, taunting and testing but never engaging or getting too close.

For when it comes to the deed Draco Malfoy can to often be found wanting.

So now he hurries down a murky London street intent on meeting his contact from the otherside and planning out his barging – secrets, those he knows, or a life time away from the blood.

A hand reaches out from the shadows of one ally and Draco does not even scream because this he has been expecting. They know, they always know and even the fact he is his fathers son will not be enough to save him now.

He is going to die and his own side is going to kill him, and the bastards will enjoy it.

"Malfoy." Hisses a voice in his ear, filled with the venom of scarcely concealed disgust.

"Potter?"

…

Later, much later when Potter has checked him over, confiscated his wand and charmed him so he cannot be fallowed, they end up sitting in an all night take-away. A horridly cheery muggle place that Draco is not dressed for, and Potter is sipping over-priced orange juice while Draco himself makes do with tasteless tea in a paper cup.

"Cards on the table, Potter." Draco says after another disgusting sip. "I'm willing to tell you everything I know if you promise to protect me."

Potter snorts into his juice.

"You! I know about you, you're just a baby Death Eater. You don't know anything important." He stands up and makes for the door, Draco knocks over the cup of tea in his haste to grab Potter's arm because he knows this is his last chance – convince Potter or die.

"Please." He says, not caring that he's pleading with soding Harry Potter. "I'll help you, I will."

Potter shrugs off his hands as easily as he would apparently shrug off Draco's death.

" I don't need your help." He says and disappears through the door. Draco refuses the replacement cup of coffee from the bemused Muggle owner and fallows Potter outside onto the cold street.

"I'd help you, anything…anything." He presses, hoping Potter gets what he's trying to say because even though he may not like blood, Draco Malfoy is not above blackmail.

Potter turns and he looks horrified.

"I'm that desperate." Draco says.

"Poor thing." Potter murmurs sarcastically as he hurries backwards and bundles Draco into a side street.

At first Draco thinks Potter is going to take him up on his hinted offer and he places as kiss, sloppy and frightened, on Potter's jaw and then thinks better of it and bites him.

Because if the price of living is shagging Potter it isn't too bad, he's done worse to stay alive.

"Bloody Git." Potter says, pushing him away and he taps the wall and leads Draco to a place where he isn't trusted but he's safe.

A place where there is no blood anymore.


	2. Chapter two

The room they've deemed as his is as naked and cold as a prison cell, which he highly suspects it might be and it is just marauding under another name for his stay. There is a bed and a bedside table, a tiny little room locked away from what is now his bedroom with a toilet and a washbasin, his only means of hygiene and an old, battered chair in horrid tartan flare and that is all.

Draco realised there would have to be cut backs on his liberties and pleasures when he went into hiding but he'd never supposed they would be this severe and this controlled.

"Potter…" he begins but Harry isn't bothering to listen to him, instead he's talking to himself.

"Its all I could put together on short notice, me or one of the order will be round twice a day with some food for you and books, like I said I'm sorry its not much but really its all I could get."

"Its fine." Draco says coldly and pushes past Potter to throw himself into the chair, it groans uncomfortably underneath him and he loathes the whole room and Potter for brining him here.

"Remus donated the chair." Potter says absentmindedly and Draco leaps out of it quickly because he doesn't want to be sitting in anything formally owned by a werewolf. He knows a wolf bite isn't something in the air or a bug that can burrow in furniture but old prejudices die hard and this is a prejudice he'd rather keep.

"When can you take it away?" he asks and Potter shakes his head angrily, turning and walking towards the door and away from Draco and his isolation.

He stops just before he shuts the door and glares at Draco with as much hatred as he can muster.

"You know he was the only one who wanted to help you." He says and then shuts the door on Draco, trapping him alone with only a vague promise of retune and Draco realises he is ensnared, unable to leave and at Potter's mercy.

He's going to starve to death.

Harry storms through the door to Grimmauld Place, bringing a black cloud with him and slamming the doors as he goes. He ignores Hermione's worried questions and Ron's nervous scowl, Neville's attempts to take his mind off his problems and the soft sounds of swing music coming from one of the bedrooms upstairs because he doesn't want to talk, or look, or think about any of his friend right at the moment, he just wants to hex something badly.

"That Malfoy!" He finally explodes over dinner. "He doesn't seem to care that I'm risking my life to protect him, he wanted me to take back the chair."

"You can if you want," Remus says mildly, spooning potatoes onto his plate. "It was going to be thrown out anyway, I just thought he might like something to sit in."

"It isn't that! He didn't want it because it belonged to you." Harry says, emphasising i you /i and Remus goes rather pallid but passes the potatoes onto a ravenous looking Neville, acting as if hiding enemies with werewolf prejudices is a perfectly normal dinner conversation.

"I would expect nothing less of Mr. Malfoy." Remus says pleasantly "Pass the peas, Ron."

Harry goes to bed that evening confused and angry, covering his head with a pillow to drown out the music coming from Sirius's old bedroom, Remus's room now, that goes on until the record tapers out and he can't hear anything in the swelling darkness.

He dreams strange dreams about tartan chairs and Malfoy.

Hermione comes back from her meeting with Malfoy red-faced and with angry tears leaking down her cheeks. With Ron's arm slung around her shoulders like a protective shield she tells her story – words spilling out in a fast, furious torrent.

"He's not changed one bit, he's still as stuck up as he was at school" she spits and Ron grabs her hand, squeezing it. "He called me a Mudblood and wouldn't eat any of the food I brought. He demanded to know when Harry was coming back to take away the chair, ranting about werewolves when I left. I could have hexed him, the arrogant little slug!"

"I don't see why we have to look after him! He doesn't know anything." Ginny pipes up from the corner chair she lounges in stroking Luna's hair as the other girl lays her head in her lap.

Hermione wipes away her tears and sniffs.

"He asked us for safety and we're supposed to give it to him, we can't just leave him with the Death Eaters."

"I think we could." Ron mutters treacherously.

"How do we know he's not a spy like Pettigrew?" Neville asks, looking suddenly nervous as if perhaps Draco has fallowed Hermione home and is now lurking in the room, unseen, but listening to them. He lowers his voice "I mean we just gave him safety, we didn't ask any questions or anything."

"Well I, for one, trust Harry's judgment." Remus says, pushing himself up from the armchair.

"Yes, and you also trusted Pettigrew." Ron says irritably. Hermione gasps, Ginny whispers 'Oh Ron!" in a disbelieving voice and Neville punches him on the arm.

Remus stops, going rigid and looks at Ron with a cold, furious glance.

"Yes, and it cost me three good friends." He says and leaves the room. There is a pause, a heart-beat while everyone tries to work out what to say, whose side to take and then Hermione pushes herself out from Ron's embrace and fallows him, apologising for her boyfriend run-away mouth and carelessness while Ron buries his head in his hands and groans.

"You shouldn't have said that." Luna says softly and Ron looks at her crossly.

"We were all thinking it, he screwed over Sirius because he trusted Pettigrew more and look where that got him."

"Ron, stop it!" Ginny says, placing a hand upon Ron's arm – a gesture of composure, trying to prompt Ron to be the same but he shakes her off and stands up, glaring at them all.

"I'm going for a walk, someone else take Draco his food. I'm not going to and neither is Hermione from now on."

When Harry comes home that evening he finds Ron sulking in the kitchen, Hermione sulking in the attic and everyone else mysteriously missing.

"What did you do today?" he asks in what he hopes is a cheerful voice but Ron only sneers at him, from Hermione he gets a tearful, heated description of the fight. He storms back down to the kitchen, not sure what he intends to do to Ron but hoping it will be painful, for even though Ron is his best friend he doesn't need doubters at this time – not when he has to lead a falling war effort when he is still only a teenager.

He thinks bitterly he should be enjoying his life, watching movies and going out with his friends, not having to make battle plans and embracing each morning with the delight that he has made it to tomorrow.

"What were you thinking?" he yells at Ron.

"I wasn't! But what are you think? Taking care of Malfoy! Do you know what he called Hermione?"

"I do, and he's called her it before. She got over it then Ron and she'll get over it now."

"And Remus, do you know what he said about Remus?"

"Was it anything like what you said about Remus?"

Ron falters in the middle of his come-back argument and bangs his head on the table, muttering to himself.

"Ron…"

"I don't like this." Ron says "I don't trust Malfoy, no of us do and it just feels wrong that we should be helping him."

"We have to," Harry says and he smiles "Its what makes us the good guys."

"But its Malfoy!"

"I know, but Ron, think about how it is for him. He doesn't care for any of us but he's entrusted his life to us and we have to protect him now. You know what will happen if the Death Eaters find him don't you?"

Ron nods slowly, the blood draining from his face. They've all seen what the Death Eaters will do to those who betray them and not even Malfoy is deserving of a death like that.

"Just don't make me talk to him." Ron says and goes to ask forgiveness of Hermione.


End file.
